EDMONTON — The Saskatchewan Roughriders want to feel at home on the road.
Saskatchewan enters Friday’s CFL game against the Edmonton Eskimos at Commonwealth Stadium riding a 15-game regular-season losing streak in West Division cities.
The last time the Roughriders won a road game against a division opponent was Sept. 7, 2014, when they downed the host Winnipeg Blue Bombers 30-24.
“It’s always hard to win on the road, but at the same time, I think it’s a mindset that you have to have,” Saskatchewan quarterback Kevin Glenn said Thursday. “You have to go into an opponent’s stadium and treat it as if it was your own. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to do everything that we can to mimic us being at home and playing well.
“There’s not too much more you can say about it, you’ve just got to go out and you’ve got to do it. You can’t talk about it, you’ve got to be about it.”
The Roughriders are 0-3-0 away from Mosaic Stadium this season, having lost 17-16 in Montreal on June 22, 27-10 in Calgary on July 22, and 30-15 in Vancouver on Aug. 5.
Saskatchewan also lost 41-18 to the host B.C. Lions on Nov. 5, 2016, so it has dropped four straight regular-season games on the road. The last time the Roughriders prevailed away from home was Oct. 15 of last season, when they beat the Toronto Argonauts 29-11.
But dropping road games against West Division opponents was particularly costly for the Roughriders, who lost ground in the division standings each time. Asked about losing away from Mosaic Stadium, defensive end Willie Jefferson replied: “It’s a big chip on our shoulder.”
The Roughriders addressed one issue on Aug. 13, when they trounced the visiting Lions 41-8. Saskatchewan had lost seven straight regular-season games against B.C., and was in the midst of a terrible drought against western teams.
After the victory over the Lions, Roughriders head coach-GM Chris Jones said his team had answered one question. The next one requiring a response was winning a road game west of Saskatchewan.
Linebacker Henoc Muamba concurred.
“It’s the next challenge on our list, the next challenge in our progression,” he said. “We’ve got to keep knocking down challenges and keep overcoming obstacles that we have — and that’s the next obstacle in our road.
“The biggest thing for us is to continue to be focused on what’s up next and not look too far ahead or too far back, not look at what happened last year or a couple of weeks ago. The best thing for us is to focus on what matters — and what matters right now is to beat Edmonton.”
After defeating the Lions, the Roughriders went into a bye week. Jones vowed that he would spend the time off examining every aspect of the team’s travel plans and, if necessary, alter things in hopes of shaking things up.
On Thursday, he revealed the results of his investigation.
“We’ve done some things organizationally as far as meetings and things like that that’ll allow us to maybe play at a little higher level,” Jones said. “We’ll see. You don’t ever know until you try.”
Offensive tackle Thaddeus Coleman believes there’s something the players can do to address the issue — and his suggestion involves self-policing.
“We’ve got to change how we approach going on the road,” Coleman said. “We’re not as young as we were last year, but we’re still a younger group and, as vets, we have to bring our younger guys along.
“It’s not just through the week but when we get to these places as well. We have to keep letting the young guys know, ‘This is a business trip. This is our job and this is what we need to focus on.’ That needs to be our main focus.”
The statistics show a stark contrast between Saskatchewan at home and on the road this season.
The Roughriders are scoring an average of 39.0 points per game at home while allowing an average of 24.5. On the road, they’ve averaged 13.7 points for and 24.7 against.
Saskatchewan starts quicker at home (outscoring teams 37-17 in first quarters and 45-23 in second quarters) than it does on the road (where it has been outscored 16-0 in first quarters and 26-10 in second quarters).
Glenn is averaging 354.2 yards passing in home games compared to 229.0 yards on the road. He also has thrown 13 touchdowns at Mosaic Stadium compared to one TD away from home.
“I can’t really say it’s one thing that makes us better than the next team travel-wise or one thing that makes us not as good as the next team travel-wise,” Jefferson said. “We need to go where we’re going, get situated, get locked in and win the game.”
For Muamba, the problem has been consistency — or a lack of it.
“Despite the big win that we had (over the Lions) and the good game that we displayed on film, I think there’s so much more in this team,” he said. “The challenge is going to be consistency.
“We can still be better. We can’t get too low on ourselves, but we have to continue to be consistent and disciplined. Discipline is the biggest thing on this team and, if we can be disciplined as a defence, we can match up with the best of them.”
